Review: At the Death House Door

Steve James and Peter Gilbert’s “At the Death House Door” is a moving portrait of the Rev. Carroll Pickett, who served as death row chaplain at a Huntsville, Texas penitentiary for fifteen years and shepherded over ninety-five convicts to their death at the hand of the state. As a portrait of crisis of conscience, James and Gilbert’s work is superb and unflinching, heightened by Pickett’s ever-so-slight resemblance to convicted former Illinois Governor Dan Ryan, who made a moral choice about death penalties in this state even as he was facing time for other serious crimes himself. “It is hard to tell anybody, even the meanest person, it’s time to go, we’re ten steps away from the gurney,” Pickett observes. A key element is the conviction of a man named Carlos Luna, who, evidence suggests, was wrongly convicted. Heartwrenching, important stuff. 98m. HD video. James and Gilbert will appear Saturday. (After this weeklong Chicago showcase, “At the Death House Door” premieres on IFC TV on Thursday, May 29.) (Ray Pride)